Resistance is Futile
by Zexion666
Summary: The Borg coined the phrase, and the children put it into play...


Not the best piece of short story fiction I've ever written. Basically the introduction of a few sparklings. They don't do much in All That Jazz 2 (which I'm updating soon, I promise), but I really like writing what i did with them.  
the whole dark chocolate espresso bean bar is real. I have one, and it came from vegas, though I can't remember the name of the store. Anyway, this would be cute as all-out war, but children crash hard on caffeine, I'll let you think up the rest of the situation yourself. I just really like that sentence as an ending. if you see typos, consider this: my computer hates me, and it 116 AM PST

Zex

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

Bumblebee sat in the driveway of the blue-shingled house ten blocks away from the Witwicky residence. His pretender form leaned his forehead on the steering wheel, and took a few deep breaths with synthetic lungs that diverted oxygen (And Nitrogen, and Carbon Dioxide) into energy far weaker than Energon, but could give Bumblebee the extra boost he needed, in this case, relaxation for a moment or two. He had just come from the Witwicky residence where Sam and Mikaela had been having a good time (he thought) until a minor misunderstanding, and Sam making a seemingly harmless comment about Mikaela's hair sent Mikaela into a fit of unhappiness thinking Sam didn't like her hair, and as Sam continued to suggest otherwise, and point out how it made Mikaela's body look, another mistake he assumed until the argument migrated to the garage where Bumblebee had been trying to relax before. The yellow Camaro shuddered, the sound of Mikaela's shrill voice still wearing on his audio receptors.

The pretender form blonde opened the driver's side door, and stepped onto the driveway. He closed the door, his native form settling into suspended mode as his core consciousness tapped into the pretender form's neural net.

_Home Sweet Home, as they say_, the Autobot in disguise sighed, and walked toward the house, hands in the pockets of his yellow leather jacket. He jingled the "keys" to his alt mode, attached to the same key ring as the key to the blue-shingled house. He paused in the dull light of the porch, and looked down at his worn black jeans, and yellow converse. The state of his pretender form relied on the state of his alt mode, and the normally yellow Autobot wondered silently what part of him was so worn. Perhaps the surface damage from what could be measured in Earth chronology as _millions_ of years, or longer. He sighed; there was no point worrying about it. It had been a long day, and Bumblebee was ready to "sleep", so his native form could recharge properly.

Bumblebee pulled the keys from his pocket, taking a moment to look at the craft foam keychain of the Autobot symbol Bebop had made during one of many of the Miller house's babysitting weekends. He smiled slightly, his synthetic blue eyes drooping as he yawned. Yes, he thought, definitely time for sleep.

As the key entered the lock, a small, metallic grunt like clearing one's throat came from Bumblebee's right. The blonde looked, blinking back sleep from his eyes.

A praying mantis with one blue eye, and one black with a blue pupil, accompanied by a large brown grasshopper with a bumblebee perched on its head all sat on the outside windowsill of the kitchen.

Bumblebee the human pretender blinked at the bumblebee insect, and its larger companions. "Hi." He muttered.

The mantis bowed its head then looked back at the blonde.

"If I was you, kid, I'd sit my keister down, and get comfortable." The grasshopper said, its small mouth barely moving with the deep, grunting voice that came from it.

Bumblebee counted the insects on the windowsill, moving one finger in vague pointing motions. Three. He counted again. Three. One was missing. "Whers Violet?" the blonde asked, his words slurring slightly.

The mantis and grasshopper exchanged a glanced then the mantis spoke. "Violet is attempting to mediate the situation that has driven us to the safety of this windowsill."

Bumblebee was used to hyperactive child pretender situations, and even Amy's temper on the worst of days, but it struck him awkwardly when Static used a certain word. "Safer?" the pretender asked cautiously.

As if on cue, a loud thud emitted from inside the house followed by a louder sound, and a rumbling that shook the kitchen windowpanes, and the door handle.

Bumblebee's eyes grew wide instantly, and he fumbled with the key, and pushed the door open.

"BEBOP!" Amy shrieked. "Don't put that-No! Not in your! Stop eating mommy's plant!" She shouted.

Bumblebee considered leaving, he also considered if he left he could go one of three places.

Option 1: Sam's house, hope the argument between Sam and Mikaela has died down, and at worst park in the garage and try not to get involved.

Option 2: Autobot City, probably get noticed by Prowl or Red Alert, and be returned to active duty.

Option 3: A quiet overlook of Tranquility to wonder why Amy was yelling, what had caused the heavy thud, and what plant Bebop saw fit to ingest.

No, Bumblebee thought, not this time. He closed the door behind him as he walked into the living room. Ambushed instantaneously from the left by Rawhide, and bright pink silly string, and from the right by Tourniquet and bright green silly string.

"Cease fire!" A deep voice bellowed.

Bumblebee turned toward the voice, hands in his pockets, too tired to make a big deal out of plasticine foam from pressurized metal cans, and gawked at the man in the doorway.

The man walking out from the kitchen with a pink-haired girl under one arm, a red-haired girl holding a pink rubber ball under the other, wore a dark denim jacket with worn patches, and a white t-shirt underneath had slightly mussed, short, dark hair, a closely trimmed mustache and goatee, wore dark pants, and thick brown leather boots. Bumblebee wouldn't have recognized the man if not for the faint red flames on the forearms and forelegs of the pants and jacket.

Bumblebee started to say something, but the man's luminescent blue eyes squared a look at the blonde that could melt hull-plating armor.

"Grab them!" He roared.

Rawhide and Tourniquet stopped their harmless attack, and bolted down the stairs to the basement as Bumblebee made a grab for them, but fell on his side in his exhaustion, and both blonde and the man in denim holding the children were disappointed to hear the basement door slam.

"Ow..." The blonde man groaned, turned onto his back, and sat up.

"Are you injured?" The denim-clad man asked, standing over the blonde.

Bumblebee managed to nod.

"Very well. Please assist Amy in the capture of Bebop." The man requested.

Bumblebee glanced up at the man. "Is that an order, sir?" He joked.

The man smirked, adjusting the two children who had given up squirming after realizing there was not fighting the adult pretender's strength. "More like the request of an old friend."

Bumblebee nodded. "Alright then, as a friend." He stood up slowly, and stretched to try and wake up his synthetic muscles and bones. "Where is my battleground?"

"Through the, um, " The man paused his sentence, and looked thoughtful.

Bumblebee looked at the man. In all the years he had known the mech masquerading as this man, he had never heard him say "um". It was amusing, no doubt about that.

"Bumblebee," The man said as he started up the stairs. "Be careful. I made an offering of sugar to them at twenty-one hundred hours."

Bumblebee paused, leaning heavily on the double-wide kitchen door frame. "Tell me you didn't." He groaned, slowly turning to look at the man.

"It was yummy." The pink-haired girl grinned.

The red-haired girl nodded her agreement, watching the rubber ball as she considered whether or not to attempt ingestion of the trinket. Ultimately she would decide against the action.

Bumblebee turned his gaze away, and sighed a deep, martyred sigh that would do any melodramatic child proud. "You don't have much experience with children," He rubbed his eyes. "Do you, Optimus?"

The denim-clad man forced a chuckle. "Is it that obvious?"

"Yes. Exceedingly." Bumblebee grumbled, and walked through the kitchen following a trail of dinner mints that appeared to be meticulously placed exactly one and to-third inches apart from each other in a pattern of pink, green, yellow, white. He sighed.

Trigger.

The blonde pretender man followed the trail of dinner mints into a small hallway made for the access of a stairway, continued up the stairs, and onto a secluded second floor patio overlooking the North-Western sky. Trigger sat on the railing, watching the door. It fluttered its head wings as Bumblebee approached, and opened the door.

Trigger drooped, and equally depressing sound coming from its small form.

"Sorry, it's just me." Bumblebee muttered.

Trigger settled down again, and watched the mints at Bumblebee's feet. A tin of the mints sat on the small table by the railing. The blonde grabbed a couple of mints, and popped them into his mouth as he turned.

"SHH!" Amy covered Bumblebee's mouth, and pulled him into the small guest room across from the patio, deposited Bumblebee on the futon couch then closed the door to a half-inch crack she could peer through.

Bumblebee stared at the blue-black haired girl, and sat up from where he'd been summarily tossed onto the couch. "Do I want to know what is going on here tonight?" He asked.

Amy glanced over her shoulder, crouched on the wood panel floor in a shiny blue tank top, and skin-tight black denim shorts. "No, but I'm gonna tell you anyway." She looked back at the crack in the door then stood up, straightened her short shorts, and walked to the couch. She sat down next to the blonde, and pulled her legs clad in knee-gray socks up to her chest, and leaned on Bumblebee's left shoulder.

Bumblebee fidgeted as he pulled off his jacket, and tossed it onto the coffee table then draped his left arm over the back of the couch.

"It started around six." Amy sighed.

"Ominous." Bumblebee teased.

Amy snorted. "Yeah. Optimus and Ironhide came over with Rawhide, Tourniquet, Key, and Air."

Bumblebee's brown furrowed at the latter two names. "Key and Air?" he asked, not sure if he really wanted to know - hyper children were hyper children.

"Did you see the two girls Optimus caught? He snagged them just before you came in. I was too busy with Bebop to say hi, so, hi Bumblebee, how was your day?"

Bumblebee blinked at the girl grinning up at him, and batting her eyelashes. "Fine. Optimus said he gave the children dinner mints."

"No, he gave them each, and in his defense he knows nothing about the energy system of a child pretender -"

"Which is very low intake." Bumblebee muttered, rubbing his tired eyes with is right hand.

"Yeah, anyway, Optimus, thinking "appease for compliance", gave them chocolate." Amy said, wincing.

Bumblebee hung his head. "Primus help the neightbors."

"If we had any." Amy sighed. "But it gets worse. Optimus picked out a random bar of anything with "chocolate" on the wrapper."

"No." Bumblebee groaned, leaning forward until his elbows rest on his knees, his head in his hands.

"Dark chocolate." Amy looked up at the ceiling.

"Noo." His whine was very pathetic, he knew, but it couldn't be helped.

"With _espresso beans_. The really nice stuff Sarah brought me from Vegas." Amy whined more from the loss of her delicious chocolate rather than the fact that she now had to wait for five espresso dark chocolate-induced three-ish year old sugar highs to wane, or die trying.

Bumblebee stood up, and walked toward the door.

"Wherever you're going, take off your shoes." Amy muttered, feeling her energy slowly draining just from the thought of the past three hours of child containment issues, and primus-knew how much longer it would be.

A loud thump emanated from the lower floor, and Amy breathed in a deep sigh. "Oh well."

Bumblebee turned sharply to the girl, his patience starting to fray. "What do you mean _oh well_?" He asked. Normally he was rather tolerant if not enthusiastic about childish sugar highs, usually busying himself with playing with the fledglings until their energy ebbed, but tonight he had been through enough shouting, and spiked emotion to give him post-traumatic-stress-disorder. As if war hadn't been enough.

"That thud you heard?" Amy asked. Bumblebee nodded, looking close to how Amy felt when she was pregnant with Bebop, and there were no more blue energon cubes in the house pantry. "That means Optimus is now locked in a bedroom, and Key and Air are loose once again. If you hear a second thump, they're all in the basement plotting."

Bumblebee felt like was commanding "amateur night" as they called it back home. Trainees in simulated combat situations would declare a "safe zone" to the battalion, and gather to come up with strategic advances on the enemy. It always ended crudely, and with much splatter of marking chips, and the eventual loss by the trainees, but the Autobot general couldn't help feeling like it was the same situation except his trainees were children, and said children were on a veritable rampage with as much technical expertise as Prowl or Optimus, but none of the emotional control, or sense to know when enough was enough.

A second thud was heard.

Bumblebee removed his shoes, and returned to the futon where he sat down on the opposite side from Amy then lay down, curling his feet up onto the blue fabric as he lay on his side, head resting on the girl pretender's lap.

Amy sighed, too tired to protest, and secretly enjoying the way Bumblebee let his affections show when seriously exhausted. She pulled back his long blonde bangs with her left index finger, and tried to hide her smile. "Too tired to storm the base?" She asked with a teasing tone.

Bumblebee nodded against Amy's stomach.

Amy sighed, and leaned back in the couch, slumping slightly. "Me too. They'll crash eventually though. Maybe if they see us sleepin' they'll..." she yawned. "Get tired..." she sighed, closing her green eyes.

Bumblebee closed his blue eyes with the slightest sound of waning power.

Across the house, Optimus lay on the floor of the children's room, arms tucked under his head as he too indulged in some recharging, if not only for a brief moment as he assumed as well that the children would soon wear themselves out in their excitement.

Alas, the three adult pretenders' relaxation was short-lived.

As Optimus opened his eyes, he sighed, thinking it was a nice "nap" as humans called it, but his internal chronometer indicated he had only been asleep for two hours, thirty-six minutes, fourteen seconds. He tried to sit up, intending on finding what two allies he had in this house (Amy, Bumblebee, and now that he thought about it, possibly Trigger), but found instead that his arms and legs had been bound quite skillfully with zipties around his ankles and wrists.

Not one, usually, for harsh speech Optimus let his head fall back again against the white carpet, and groaned. "Slag."

"shh! That's a naughty word!" Key, the girl with pink hair, sat on the bed holding a crudely constructed doll resembling Optimus Prime with blue buttons (one a heart the other round) for eyes, a stitched white mouth, and simple joints in its blue and red body. "Air says to stay still."

"Key," Optimus said firmly. "Let me go. It is past your due recharge, and you are running on reserve power."

"I don't wanna go to sleep!" Key whined, tears bubbling in her eyes. "I'm having fun with the big kids!" She cried.

Optimus groaned again, his face pulling into scrunched up expression of pain and regret for bringing it up. How did Elita do this every day? He made a mental note to get all of his sparkmate's babysitting secrets.

A girl with red hair up in pigtails, a pink rubber ball stuffed in the front pocket of her red Oshkosh-B'gosh overall-style dress walked to the doorway, and folded her arms stubbornly. "You make Key Cwy, Optimush Prime!" She shrieked indignantly in her little fledgling voice.

Optimus had to resisted simultaneously laughing and wincing from the way the girl pronounced his name.

"You're her impwint, you can't make her cwy!" Air jutted out her chin.

"You're right." Optimus let a small chuckle loose. "I apologize, Key. Can you forgive your father?"

Key nodded. "I don't like this game no more." She sniffled. "I'm too sleepy. I want Optimush to tuck me in now."

Air whined frustrated. "Nuh-uh! Not yet! We gotta get Bwazah and Bubblebee!" She hopped for one foot to the other, her face scrunched up in tiny rage.

Optimus thanked his millennia of dealing with soldiers who had a slightly less than assuring demeanor, and resisted laughing, but made a mental note that Jazz had been right when he said the angrier children become, the more difficult it is to resist thinking them cute.

END


End file.
